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Sunday, 24 March 2013

Despite my
recent resolution to blog more often, my writing was rather lacking last week. The week was instead taken up with an
all-consuming house hunt after last-minute letting agent/landlord let-downs in
the search for a new place. Luckily the
housemates and I found somewhere on Friday, so with an end to the looming fear
of being homeless (with only a load of makeup and silicon kitchen utensils to
show for myself), a celebration was in order on Saturday night.

After spending a
good twenty minutes checking how close the new Farringdon home is from my
favourite London spots, I thought it would be apt to go to one with H (Old
Street – 1.0 miles, 20 mins Google maps walking, just in case you wondered). We went to the Rotary Bar & Diner on City
Road, a newly opened temporary-ish place from the people behind Redhook and
Giant Robot in Clerkenwell (part of the Rushmore group that also own Milk &
Honey and The Player among others).

It will be there
for 10 months or so (the entire block is then being re-developed), and open until
late 6 days a week. It’s been done out with
a retro 70s formica décor (including lots of orange and a mountain-scape mural), with nice wines, slightly
scary sounding pint-sized cocktails, and food from their chef partner Carl
Clarke (currently at Disco Bistro at the Rising Sun in St Paul's).

The menu
includes snacks, buns (chicken, pollock and spicy crab, beef and veggie),
wood-grilled fish, steak and pig, with BBQ offerings coming soon (their smoker is
apparently in transit). We started with buttermilk
fried chicken wings (£5), that were crispy outside and tender within, and great
with the tangy hot sauce (we went with the lovely waiter's recommendation). We also had hot smoked salmon (£5)
from the snacks section, piled on top linseed crackers with cream cheese and
wild garlic.

I then popped
next door to get us some delicious Yum Buns.
Yum Bun have been going for a while with their street food offering of Asian
steamed buns, and have now set up next to the Rotary. You can buy them to take away from the little
shop, or can walk through to the bar to eat them (it’s the perfect way to have them
- street food is not so fun in freezing temperatures).

There are 4
different filling options – chicken, mushroom, pork and beef. We went for one pork (tender roasted belly
with hoi sin, cucumber and spring onion,) and one beef (sticky slow-braised ox
cheek with coriander and peanuts). Both
were fantastic, and it’s only £6 for two.

H and I finished
with a rich salted milk chocolate pot with salt-caramel peanut sprinkles (£5) from
the Rotary’s menu (there are also choc-ices from the tasty Sorbitum ices, with
flavours including tempting bourbon caramel and sour cherry).

The Rotary and
its Yum Bun collaboration is a great idea, and it’s just a shame that it’s only
there until the end of the year.

Thursday, 14 March 2013

The term ‘hipster’ seems to have
been bandied about a lot recently, particularly in the talk of
restaurants. Take the Evening Standard’s a little grumpy review of the newly opened The Clove Club in Shoreditch Town Hall,
toting it as one of the hottest openings of 2013 ‘for the food-bloggers and hipsters anyway’, mentioning its clone-like diners and plentiful beards. Although there is a certain look
to the bars/restaurants/cafes/outfits in trendy parts of (usually East) London,
frankly the term's just a bit silly.

If you were to use it though, the home of the ‘hipster’
would most probably be Dalston. I’ve
never properly explored it, but the lovely L from work decided I needed to leave
N1 on Saturday night, so off we went for some cocktails and food.

We started at the Ridley Road
Market Bar with ginger mojitos, before going to Rita’s Bar and Dining. Rita’s is a ‘travelling food and drink
collaboration’ between Jackson Boxer, Gabriel Pryce and Missy Flynn – it’s
currently at Birthdays, and they were at Feast last weekend at Tobacco Dock. They are also hosting Rita’s Supper Club in
collaboration with Feat, with a series of dinner nights (£45 tickets for dinner
and drinks).

This Rita’s menu includes versions
of American-ish classics, all a little artery-clogging (bacon-brittle anyone?),
but those we tried were delicious. The
fried chicken roll (£6.50) arrived fast-food style in a Rita’s brown paper bag,
and was the best fried chicken I’ve had – juicy and tender meat in the crispy
coating, in a squishy, glazed bun with lettuce and mayo.

The patty melt (£6.50) was richly
savoury, with beef mince, melted cheese and sweet onions inside the toasted,
greasy bread. We also ordered greens
with a tangy mustard sauce (£3.50), and the green chilli mac and cheese (£4),
with a dollop of avocado on top. On the
next table the specials of pulled pork Cuban sandwich and crispy fried crushed
potatoes looked just as good.

The food’s not expensive, at just
£10 each with our pretty restrained ordering, and we also had some great Tommy’s
margaritas (just tequila, lime juice and agave nectar - £6.50) beforehand at
the bar. The place was pretty packed on
Saturday night when we left about 10, so we headed to Ruby’s bar up the road
for rhubarb sours. L’s compliment
of a man’s beard got us free cocktails, so maybe the pride in a trendy Dalston
beard isn’t such a bad thing after all.

UPDATE Dec 2013 - The Rita's residency at Birthdays has finished, but they now have a permanent home on Mare Street in Hackney. An updated post is here.

Tuesday, 12 March 2013

I think I sent 127 emails
today. Most of my days in the office are
spent furiously typing away, but since starting my blog I’m sometimes stuck for
words. I absolutely adore food and think
I know more than a bit about it, but writing about it takes a little more
effort.

I’ve been thinking of ways to
work on my writing, especially when reading the witty posts and articles of
more established bloggers and professionals.
Jay Rayner is a great writer about food – as the Observer’s restaurant
critic since 1999, he has been responsible for rather a few scathingly,
hilarious reviews. I spotted that he was
running a Guardian Masterclass called ‘Choosing your words – the craft of good
writing’, so booked a place and went last night.

It was a really
useful and insightful three hours. In
the first half Jay talked over four of his pieces, going through the structure
of each and how he put them together, taking questions throughout. This
included one of his restaurant reviews (his panning of Novikov – I asked and
apparently it really was that bad), but the most important part for me to take
away was that to be a good food writer, you need to be a good writer. It’s not all about the topic, but instead
about building the ability to write something that's engaging.

The second half
was all about the importance of the beginning.
The group were tasked with writing the first line or two of a piece
about an opera singer, who Jay interviewed for 15 minutes. He also wrote his beginning, and talked us
through, after gently critiquing some of our efforts. More questions after also answered some of my
own about his restaurant reviewer role; his lack of scoring (he feels a rather
middle of the road 3/5 score would put people off the more interesting prose),
legal issues (a lawyer is cc’d when he submits his work) and how he decides on
where to go (mixture of PRs, recommendations and research).

After also
talking to the fabulous organiser of the Masterclasses about blog tips, I
left feeling really inspired. I can’t
promise any posts that would sell national newspapers, but hopefully writing that's a little tighter
and a little more entertaining will follow.

I would thoroughly
recommend the Masterclasses – do have a look at what they are running in the
coming months:

Sunday, 10 March 2013

Last year saw a spate of Peruvian
restaurants opening in London. There was
Ceviche in Soho, with lots of ceviche, surprisingly enough; Lima in Fitzrovia, with its
beautifully colourful food; and Coya, a new restaurant and members’ club on
Piccadilly. I’ve decided my favourite
Peruvian import is the pisco sour (sours made with pisco, a grape brandy), but
I also tried some interesting and mostly delicious food at Coya for lunch last
week.

The décor is plush Latin with lots of dark panelling, acid
lime velvet and neon-knitted tribal masks on the wall. The place is big, with different sections of
the open kitchen on show, and a separate pisco bar before you get to the
restaurant (there is also a members’ part too).
The menu is also big, with small dishes including ceviche and little
skewers, with larger dishes including those cooked with their Josper oven.

I made the mistake of not taking notes, so have been trying
to remember all the rather mysterious Peruvian sounding ingredients (bear with
me – I think I’ve remembered the crucial parts). We started with a fresh corn salad and a stunning
ceviche of corvina (a white fish), with the perfect balance of the citrusy
marinade and earthy truffle.

The thinly
sliced raw yellowtail tuna came with a cool but spicy green chilli, coriander
and lime sauce and daikon, and the scallops were perfectly cooked with their
limo chilli crumb and onion and pea shoots.
The chicken skewer was tender but lacked a punchy flavour of aji
Amarillo (South American hot yellow chilli) and garlic, but the crispy squid
with coriander and ginger dipping sauce was a nice take on fried squid.

The best main was the beautifully tender and pink beef
fillet, with crispy spring onions, rocoto chilli and star anise. The lobster and tiger prawns both came with
the same chilli salsa, and were both a little underwhelming after the other dishes
despite the fancy shellfish. From the
sides, we tried patatas bravas (different to the usual Spanish kind, but tasty
nonetheless), and nicely simple asparagus and sprouting broccoli with chilli
and garlic butter.

We finished with their Fortunato chocolate fondant, with
almond and roasted white chocolate ice-cream, chilli-chocolate ice-cream and a
refreshingly tart citrus pisco sorbet. The
corn sundae with sweet corn ice cream also sounded an intriguing and fun
dessert.

I went to Coya on a work lunch, but if you are footing the
bill, the smaller dishes are around the £10 mark, with the larger dishes around
£15-30. The service was very good, and
the food was impressive on the whole, with vibrant flavours and interesting
combinations, and all very beautiful on their lovely earthenware plates. I haven’t yet been to any of the other
Peruvian places in town, but will make it my mission to search out the best
pisco sour this year.

Sunday, 3 March 2013

The restaurants on Charlotte Street are always
teeming with media types on Friday lunchtimes. If I’m lucky enough to get
an invite, I’m sometimes one of them, and a few Fridays ago got the chance to
go to Roka for a work lunch. It was the perfect opportunity to go again,
as I was impressed with the modern Japanese food and its beautiful presentation
on lunches before, but it’s a pricey place. They don't have prices on
their website, and as the saying goes if you have to ask, you can't afford it. A
treat if someone else is picking up the bill.The menu includes sushi and sashimi, along with a focus on
their Robata grill. There were eight of
us for lunch, so we got to greedily work our way through a lot of the menu.

We started with tempura (we tried all kinds on the premise
that deep fried=good), with crunchy and nicely fishy soft-shell crab, fresh
prawn and vegetables, all in the light, bubbly batter. The favourite of rock shrimp has been
replaced by Scottish langoustine (apparently rock shrimp are too hard to get
hold of now) – not quite as good, but still very tasty with the chili mayo.

From the sushi selection we had some with more soft-shell
crab with cucumber and kimchi, and some very fresh tuna rolls. The gyoza came next and were lovely – sticky,
golden beef, ginger and sesame, and my favourite dish of little dumplings
filled with black cod, crab and crayfish with a tangy ponzu citrus dressing.

Roka’s black cod is the best version I’ve tried, with
buttery, soft fish in the delicious yuzu miso marinade. The beef skewers and tender, pink beef fillet
were also very good, and the vegetable dishes were fantastic, with asparagus
with sweet soy and sesame and squidgy soft and sweet aubergine with mirin,
ginger and soy.

The real showstopper was the dessert platter – about three
foot long, with exotic fruit, colourful balls of sorbets and ice-creams, and a
selection of their desserts. My
favourites were the dark chocolate pudding with a slightly-scary bright green macha
tea filling oozing from the middle, and a lychee custardy pot topped with
granita and a nutty, chewy coconut biscuit.
Just don’t try the stinky snake fruit (like a disgusting lychee, which
no-one needs even if it is very exotic).

The cocktails are also great – twinkles (champagne, vodka
and elderflower with a lemon twist), and the lawnmower (vodka, the Japanese
spirit shochu, lemon, pepper and vanilla) being the best I tried. I haven’t been downstairs to the Shochu Lounge
bar below, but have heard it’s always buzzy for evening drinks.

I was just as impressed by Roka on this visit, but just
maybe wait for someone nice to invite you there.